


Picket fences

by dancinguniverse



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6224917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick weeds the garden. Nix is more the managerial type.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picket fences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



> A late birthday gift, for an awesome writer. May the year bring you everything you desire and then some! I can deliver some domestic Winnix, at the least. <3

Nix rouses himself on a Sunday morning when the sun finally grows too bright to ignore. Dick is long gone, at church, Nix assumes. It isn't until he stumbles downstairs for his coffee that he finally notices the time, and then it takes him another ten minutes wandering the house before he catches motion out the kitchen window on his second loop through, a flash of red hair. He pushes open the back door, still in his bathrobe, and stands barefoot on the porch in the soft April air, looking down into the yard. Dick is on his hands and knees next to the steps, yanking a winter's accumulation of dead leaves and last year's weeds from the beds lining the house. He hadn't bothered with gloves so his hands are caked in mud, his pants hardly better. At least he'd changed out of his church clothes.

He looks up when the door falls closed again with a creaking bang, smiling up Nix. "Afternoon," he greets him.

Nix settles on the top step of the porch, wrapping his fingers around his coffee mug's smooth sides. "Don't you rob me of ten minutes. It's still morning."

Dick's smile widens. "My mistake." Nix sips at his coffee and glances around the yard, the trees at the far end just beginning to bud, the broad expanse of fine grass still waking up from winter's long sleep. The sun is warm but there are thick clouds scudding across the sky, shading the whole yard in brief pauses before fleeting off again. Dick is hacking at a root with a spade he found somewhere. Maybe he bought it. Maybe it came with the house. Nix doesn't remember buying any tools. Dick seems unfazed by the root's stubbornness, his motion smooth like a woodcutter's chop. He has a smear of dirt under his left ear he doesn't seem to have noticed.

"The kid down the block'll do that for a quarter," Nix tells him. He's not sure why he bothers. He doesn't want to watch the kid down the block weed his garden. 

"I like doing it myself," Dick says, and digs at least a long chunk of the root free. The dirt is laid pretty much bare in front of him, weeds and waste piled up at his sides. Dick's fingers rake absent tracks in the earth as he searches almost blindly for some leftover detritus to pull up. His fingers catch on a vine twining along the foundation of the house, and he follows it along the side of the house in a crawl, clawing up a growing tangle of vines that doesn't appear to have beginning or end. He has mud on his ass as well, clear fingerprints where he must have wiped his hands earlier. 

Nix takes another swallow of coffee. "You even sure that's a weed?"

Dick sits back on his heels, studying the offending vines in his hand ruefully, then drops them back to the dirt. "I haven't done this since I was a kid," he admits, glancing around him at the piles of discarded waste. "I used to help my mom do the flowerbeds." 

"A kid? I hardly believe you stopped helping with chores when you went off to war. Didn't you adopt a whole second family?" 

Dick smiles and doesn't take the bait. "I got overthrown. Ann actually remembered the flowers from the weeds. I got relegated to mowing the lawn and raking leaves." He starts sweeping the weeds into one pile, abandoning the creeper along the house.

Nix thinks about getting up to look for a rake, but the wood of the steps is soft under his feet, and he has half a cup of coffee left besides. "My mom grew orchids for a few years," he offers. Dick waves away a curious wasp without seeming concerned, watching Nix expectantly. He shrugs, ducking away as the same wasp careens drunkenly over to investigate him, and puts a hand over the mouth of his coffee. "I don't think it went anywhere. Kind of a fad with her friends for a while. We had a lot of pots in the breakfast room. Most of them never even flowered, and that's after she hovered over them like a hen over eggs." 

Dick gets up, gathering up his armfuls of dead plants and dumping them in the big trashcan. "I was thinking about petunias," he confesses. "Something that just needs some water and weeding now and then." He brushes at the dirt on his shirtfront, but the damage is already done. "Even you should be able to handle that." 

Nix blinks at this last. _Why, you going somewhere?_  It's on the tip of his tongue, except even thinking opening up that avenue makes his stomach clench, starts to leech away the softness of the morning. 

Dick crosses back over the lawn, stopping in front of Nix and peering at him curiously. "You hungry? I want some lunch." 

Nix stands hurriedly, brushing away the image of a farm in Pennsylvania he's never seen, an empty desk in the office Dick shares at the factory. His fingers tighten on his mug. "Yeah. Okay." 

When they get inside, though, Dick steps sideways into the mudroom, stripping off his shirt and tossing it directly into the washing machine. Nix pulls the big pan off the dish rack, but he doesn't even make it as far as the stove, stalling out in the middle of the kitchen watching Dick peel off his socks. He makes quick work of his pants as well. He still has the dirt under his ear. He looks up to see Nix lingering in the kitchen, watching him.

"I didn't want to track mud all over," he explains. He turns to the sink, turning the tap on full, and Nix starts toward him. He's still holding a frying pan in his hand, though he can't remember for the life of him what he was going to put in it. He sets it down on the table as he passes by and steps in behind Dick, hands settling on his hips.

Dick turns, a surprised quirk of a smile on his face. "Did you —" Nix cuts him off, dragging Dick's face to his, kissing him hard. Dick grabs him back, wet hands sliding inside his robe. "We can —"

"Shower," Nix says hurriedly, and backs out of the laundry room, towing Dick with him.  

It's an hour before they finally sit down to lunch, bacon and egg sandwiches at the kitchen table and a fresh pot of coffee, in deference to Nix's late start on the day. Outside, a soft rain has started to fall, sunlight still leaking in around the clouds. It illuminates Dick's handiwork even as the rain smooths away the dirt he scattered over the surrounding grass, the furrows he dug in the beds.

Dick stares absently out the window while he chews his sandwich. Nix watches Dick, who speaks without turning his head. "You think Mike needs the quarter?" 

Nix blinks, distracted, and swallows his sandwich. "What?"

"Mike." Nix stares at him. "The kid down the block," Dick says patiently. "For doing the yard." 

"Oh." Nix shrugs. "No. I think he was going to go to the movies with it." Nix watches the side of Dick's face while he surveys the yard again. It's big enough, Nix supposes, but just a square of grass when you get right down to it, muddy in patches from the spring slop even before this latest rain. Big enough for a dog if they fenced it in, or a vegetable garden if they dug it up on the one side. Probably not big enough for both. Nix sets down his sandwich. "You still think about that farm?"  

Dick shrugs, watching the rain or the grass or maybe the lines of trees at the property line. He's still chewing, and he catches a drip of grease before it slides down his hand, sucking at the skin under his thumb. "Sure, sometimes." 

Nix nods, setting his jaw. Dick glances over at him, and Nix hunches over his coffee. Dick kicks his ankle, and Nix stands. His coffee could use some sugar. 

"I thought about dragging you with me," Dick says, leaning back in his seat to call after Nix's back. 

He stops, then fumbles for the sugar bowl. "I've got the company," he says. 

Dick's voice is amused. "You're only in the office one day out of five." 

Nix grimaces. "Dick." He turns. Dick is watching him, tucking the last curl of crust into his mouth. 

"I'm not going anywhere right away," Dick tells him. Nix's chest is tight. Dick picks up their plates, carries them toward Nix, and drops them into the sink. "Besides, we'll see how you do with the petunias." 

Nix tucks his chin over Dick's shoulder. "Probably kill them all." 

"Well." Dick's fingers thread through his hair. "Then we'll try again next year."


End file.
